Millions more taxpayer’s dollars wasted by Sydney West Local Health District.

Professor William Tarnow Mordi was protected by Sydney West Local Health District for nearly a decade.

An articles in the Sydney Morning Herald slams Westmead Hospital and Sydney West Local Health District (SWLHD) for not acting on damning external investigations spanning seven years that exposed William Tarnow Mordi’s lack of managerial and clinical skills. Thousands of taxpayer and charity dollars were wasted on equipment that no one knew how to use. And babies were put at risk by concerning clinical practices.

The first report was in 2001 by Professor Ross Haslam who found ”considerable variability in the work practices of the consultants”.
In August of 2008 William Tarnow Mordi was allowed to step down quietly after the report by Professor David Tudehope and specialist nurse Sandie Bredemyer was critical of Professor Tarnow Mordi’s clinical and managerial skills.

A Westmead Hospital spokesperson said that between August 2008 and the appointment of a new director, Professor Tarnow Mordi took periods of leave and undertook further training.

Taxpayers and those who donate to charities might well be concerned that Westmead Hospital and SWLHD took no effective action to correct a problem that had been brought to their attention seven years earlier in 2001. They might be concerned that taxpayer’s dollars might now be wasted on possibly avoidable legal cases and damages for at least one baby who was allegedly harmed during those seven years.

Taxpayers would be relieved by Westmead Hospital’s reassurance that Professor Tarnow Mordi was not the director of the Unit and did not perform research on babies in the Unit after August 2008.

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3 Comments on “Millions more taxpayer’s dollars wasted by Sydney West Local Health District.”

Westmead Hospital and Sydney West Local Health District’s claimed that William Tarnow Mordi was not the director of the neonatal intensive care unit and did not perform research on babies after the Tudehope – Bredemyer Report in August 2008 is untrue. Tarnow Mordi was allowed to continue in his role until his contract expired in December 2008. During this period his clinical privileges had been removed by the hospital. It is to be hoped that no research of any kind was performed on babies in the unit without full disclosure to their parents of the Report and removal of Tarnow Mordi’s privileges. Anything less would be unethical and contravene NHMRC guideline for research in Humans.

Hospital managements are peculiarly independent and are immune to the constraints of usual justice. Cover-up tactics are essential to avoid accusations of mismanagement. Whatever the real truth about the Westmead neonatal services may be, pernicious inquiries which employ
“spurious peer reviews” are the tools which hospital bureaucracies rely on to discipline whistle blowers and to intimidate staff from complaining out loud.
The first publicised case occurred in 1986 at the Prince of Wales Hospital when multiple “witnesses” of no special experience in a critical specialty were invited by the hospital to give damning evidence against a highly-qualified specialist. The credentials of those witnesses were not examined and some of them frankly falsified their experience.
Before we jump to conclusions about Westmead, we should know precisely who said what, when, why and with what authority. Those are the real issues but they will never be exposed.